Apps

Well, here’s an app that’s actually practical. Cloud Photos (for iOS) is a newly launched mobile camera replacement app which automatically uploads photos to Dropbox, as soon as you snap the picture. The idea here is that you can use the app to save space on your iPhone’s disk drive, as it allows you to save photos directly to the cloud instead of the iPhone’s Camera Roll. Within Cloud Photos, you can browse the photos stored in your Dropbox folders, which displays them as thumbnails that take up 1/40th...

It's been just over a year since Digit launched its powerful automated savings plan, which painlessly saves a few dollars at a time from your checking account to help you pay down debt or save for major purchases. Aside from adding interest payments, the service hasn't changed much since. But starting today, Digit is looking and feeling significantly more polished, thanks to an iOS app for iPhone, iPad, and the Apple Watch....

GetGlue is rebranding next week to tvtag as part of an acquisition by i.TV completed in November 2013. Writing in an email to customers that was sent out today, the company says that the rebranding of the service “has been a long time coming” and that a large update will be released alongside the new branding....

Crashworks, a new Idealab-backed travel startup, is today coming out of its semi-stealth mode with a fun mobile application called Crash and accompanying website for unique, crowdsourced tourist attractions. The difference between what Crash offers compared with more robust travel guides, is that it’s not focused on recommending hotels, transportation, restaurants or bars – it’s only about the…

Card.io, the toolkit for mobile app developers which lets users pay for items by holding their credit card up to the phone’s camera, is today launching a consumer-facing app. It’s something like Square, but without the dongle. It’s also not aimed at merchants, as Square is. Instead, the new Card.io applications, available for both iPhone and Android, are meant for person-to-person payments. Splitting lunch, borrowing money, paying for gas – that sort of thing.

Google today updated its Google Maps iOS app to include a ride-sharing tab it introduced for Android owners just last week. The new tab, which shows up under a taxi icon between walking and biking options, shows both the available ride-sharing options and price quotes. Clicking one of the available tiers, such as UberX or UberSelect, takes you to the Uber app. While Uber is the partner here in the US, Google has teamed up with 99Taxis in Brazil, Ola Cabs in India, Hailo in the UK and Spain, mytaxi in...

One thing that has been mentioned in almost every piece we’ve published about SwiftKey‘s excellent smart keyboard for Android over the years is ‘But it’s not available for iOS’. Today that changes – but with a huge caveat....

Plants vs. Zombies has long been among the most popular games on both Android and iOS, but it's always come with a price tag. That's suddenly changed, however, now that PopCap has made its garden slasher app available for free. Previously priced at $2.99 on iTunes and Google Play, the iPad-compatible HD app is only free for iOS users, and it remains unclear whether PopCap will offer a similar discount for Android gamers. It's also unclear how long the offer will last, but if you have yet to try your...

When Google finally launched the official Gmail application for iOS earlier this month, the tech world sang with joy… for all of about thirty seconds. Almost immediately, reports spilled in that the app was broken, buggy, and almost entirely unusable. Google pulled the app down within a few hours. Today, they’re taking a second swing at it.

The official Reddit app is fast and free, replacing the need for third-party clients.

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iPhones. iPads. Android. Windows Phone. We've updated all of our essential apps lists to include a few forgotten favorites, some long awaited arrivals and, as always, even more amazing apps. Check them out!...

Once you start watching TV with your iPhone or iPad, there is no going back. When the big screen becomes boring, you just switch to the smaller screen, where a whole world of Twitter, email, the Web, and apps stand ready to entertain your multitasking mind. In this week’s episode of Fly or Die, CrunchGear editor John Biggs and I look at three TV apps designed to enhance your TV watching experience, not distract you from it. We give each one a “fly” or “die” verdict and, as usual, a founder from one o...

You owe it to your eyes to play this pretty, innovative puzzle game. Get it—if and when the price drops.

Klout is evolving from a service that told you how much influence you had in terms of a numerical value, to a service that now tells you why you’re influential and how you can improve on that. Starting today, users will notice a redesigned service that the company claims is the “first step” towards its vision of “helping people be known for what they love.”...

Quadstreaker is the digital equivalent of a scratch map, giving users a simple and visual way to keep track of where they’ve been....

Our own beloved TechCrunch app, an app that is, at least in my opinion, the best TechCrunch-based application on the Internet today, has just been updated by our handsome and well-spoken dev team. The new app includes improved comment counts, a Crunchbase map that allows you to see where your favorite startups are based, and new sharing options including Instapaper.

Earlier this month, TechCrunch reported that Yik Yak would soon be introducing a new feature designed to help the floundering app boost its user retention numbers: private chat. Today, the company confirmed the feature is now going live, along with the introduction of a new “Safety Center,” which will provide resources and tips focused on having a positive experience in the app.

For the past two years, Rdio's music app for iOS has come with a maddening deficiency. You could create and listen to playlists ad nauseam, but if you wanted to make any major changes to them, you'd need to head over to a computer. It was such a basic thing, and one that's now been fixed as part of a software update that went out today. Now you can move tracks around, add other people to collaborate on playlists, and customize what artwork is shown up top....

Photo service Cooliris has released an update to its iOS app that includes better discovery features for photos along with integration with Dropbox. This update comes as the app is being used in 75 countries with over 3 million installs. The app is already integrated with social networks like Facebook, Instagram, Google+, Flickr and has already collected at least a billion photos....

As Semil showed back in November, social travel sites are all the rage these days among the entrepreneurs, offering plenty of interesting approaches to offering recommendations on where and how to travel. You may not have heard of HipGeo, but if you’re a traveler, this is something that will likely pique your curiosity. HipGeo has developed a location-aware platform that records and displays the places users go and how they get there, and today they’ve released a new app that is essentially a travel dia...

This week's list includes an app to schedule Uber rides, a new email app with a built-in assistant and a new messaging app.

Wattpad, an online community where readers can find and discuss a variety of free stories, is announcing updated versions of its iOS and Android apps. The two biggest changes in the updates, which went live last week, are probably the addition of offline access and inline commenting. Offline reading seems like an obvious feature for a reading app, since you might want to read on an airplane or…

What the next iPhone really really needs is not an even bigger screen, flatter icons, flexible widgets or live tiles, or even crystal-ball-gazing cards. Or Facebook Home. That list is just garnish compared to the biggie: the iPhone needs a better keyboard. The iOS keyboard remains the most offensive piece of skeuomorphism across Apple’s faux realistic, lavishly textured user interface estate.

Today, while most of the U.S. was sleeping, Apple approved the Netflix update which brings universal support for iPhone, iPod touch and iPad. On the iPad, it doesn’t do much beyond adding a new icon, but I couldn’t access Netflix until I updated.